The troubles of knowing yourself

For her

Ilkani and Three faced away from each other, arms crossed. The three of them would be leaving for the search soon, but they had to wait for Eight to be done first. Cuttlefish had something to tell her before they left.

"..." Three glanced sideways at the Octoling beside her, squinting a bit. Not even angry squinting, just...perplexed. Cautious. Not sure what she was feeling.

"..." Ilkani mirrored the glance, though her gaze was decidedly more perturbed. She seemed to know exactly how she felt.

"...I...apologize." Three murmured. She figured she might as well be the first to break the silence. Better to get this out of the way before they got on the helicopter Pearl had loaned them for the expedition. "I've caused the Octarians a lot of grief, I can imagine, so I can understand that you don't associate me with anything pleasant. I won't force you to be my...friend or anything."

Ilkani paused to decipher, and then sighed. "...I think I'm past that by now." She replied. "Eight trusts you, and I trust her, and I never interacted with you personally prior to seeing Eight again. There's...I just don't understand one thing."

Three was quiet, and then raised an eyebrow. "What don't you understand?"

"...how you can go from...embarking on a campaign of spite and vengeance against our people to, you know, literally being in a committed relationship with someone you would've splatted had you met in slightly different circumstances." She explained, brow furrowed in slight irritation. "How can you go from hate to love that quickly? It makes no sense."

Three grimaced. "I don't know some of those words but I think I can guess the point." She rubbed her arm. "And as an answer...it wasn't quick. And there was plenty reason. And I don't think I ever hated her to begin with."

"...explain?"

The Inkling gave a sigh, gazing over towards where Eight was listening attentively to the captain. "Well, for starters, I was a bit younger when I combed through looking for the Zapfish. I didn't really question anything. All I knew was that some of our stuff was stolen, and that made it a dangerous situation for Inkopolis, so I helped. I was plenty used to Turf War by that point, so it didn't occur to me at first that I was permanently splatting you guys. If I'd known that...if I'd realized..."

Ilkani was deathly quiet.

Three cleared her throat. "B-but...I never hated you. I never hated the Octarians. I think...the most I felt was fear. Because you guys had stolen our power! And maybe you needed it, but so did we! And that seemed like a bad thing to me! Didn't help that Octavio talked himself up as some big bad."

The other didn't respond.

The Inkling gave a small sigh and decided to continue. "And...as far as where Eight fits into this...I missed a lot of the cool stuff she did. But...apparently I got brainwashed after I saved her, and wanted to hurt her, and she...saved me. And I didn't even realize until later. And then she saved the world or something! While I was passed out!" Three brought a hand to her forehead. "I remember waking up, confused, everyone was celebrating. And...she was looking at me...with no small amount of fondness."

Ilkani raised an eyebrow. "...what, did you guys just immediately hit it off right then?" She questioned incredulously.

Three shook her head. "No, not at all. It was a good few months after when I started to feel that way about her." Her eyes darkened a bit, clouded with sadness. "And...I didn't really feel right interacting much with her for that first month. After the ride to Inkopolis, she...kinda retreated into a shell. She bumped into someone on the street and started shaking. I was sure she wouldn't wanna see me. I kinda tried to kill her twice by that point, you know? Not the best first impression."